As you may see to the far right of this blog, I've been busy finishing my own
story of finding my father, which took some eleven years. I'm glad to share it with you here because I'm of the firm belief
that we can only gain strength from each other by sharing our stories. Do please send me your tales at danifloodmail@gmail.com.
I am really sorry that I am unable to personally help so many of you to find your fathers; I'm a journalist and I am about
disseminating information. Hopefully, you will find your ways through some of the avenues in this website. Best warm wishes.
D.F.

A
British Columbia Supreme Court judge has recently ruled that sperm donor anonymity is unconstitutional. Unless the decision is overturned by an appeals court, British Columbia joins the United Kingdom which made it illegal for sperm donors to be anonymous as of March, 2005. The UK made it possible for donor offspring to seek information about their fathers once they turn 18.
Thus it seemed fitting that our latest profile in our continuing series, “In Search of a Father,” be about someone
who has, in the United States, where donor anonymity is legal, been looking for her donor father for years. This magazine
is pleased to introduce “Girl Conceived,” the pseudonym for the blogger of http://connectitblog.blogspot.com/, which explores the absent father experience from her point of view, which is that of others. We notice that as of this date,
the press in the United States has virtually ignored the British Columbia ruling.

FindingYourFather.com
has a new page today – with tips on how to find one’s father, or anyone, I suppose. I wrote it off the top of
my head and will be adding to it as I think of more avenues onto which father seekers can venture. Originally, I thought it
would be best to focus this site on the decision-making process one needs to go through before looking for a father –
the various possible outcomes of various searches – because you need to be prepared. You need to get your head ready
and that of anyone who will support you in this endeavor – a friend, an adopted mother, your biological mother, a grandparent.
Because the search for a long lost father, or a loved one, is one of the most emotionally-wracking endeavors a person can
undertake. It needs to be done carefully and deliberately. Ideally, you should try to get some time off from work or school
around the time you reach your answers if you can. Because it’s exhausting. I know, because I had to look for my father,
I've interviewed a number of people who've looked for their fathers and read books by father seekers.

Sharing
the experiences of others who have searched for their fathers, or not searched,will remain the prime focus
of FindingYourFather.com. I decided to create a How To Tips page because though I don’t know how to find everyone --
and some people can’t be found – I realized I can try, because I can – many reporters can. And so the development
of this page is underway.

Along the way, a Facebook friend learned of this site and told me about his experience
in finding the parents of an adopted cousin without that cousin’s parents names. This is our first guest writer –
Joe Holt. You can read his account of what happened and his step by step guide to how he did this on Ancestry.com, with which
we are not affiliated, by clicking here.

I have a stack of books to tell you about. One is: FINDING MY FATHER by Rod McKuen, the poet, song writer
and performer. (It can be had through the library. I just noticed there are about 50 copies available for a penny on Amazon.
I am not an Amazon Associate and do not receive remuneration for books I recommend.)

McKuen's memoir is a well-written highly detailed account of his search for his father, most through investigators
that he hired. If someone were looking for their father even without an investigator, the great value of this book is the
thorough description of the many many dead ends at which McKuen and his hired searchers arrived. Asking friends of friends
of one's mother does sometimes yield a successful connection.

This
quote from the book is thought-provoking: "...unless you were born or brought up under anything but ordinary circumstances
it is impossible to understand how much some of us with no parents, one good parent, two bad parents, or even two exceptionally
fine adoptive parents, need to know about their origins."

Since
I did not grow up under "ordinary" parental circumstances, I do understand the need some people have to find their
fathers or birth parents. Maybe I'm a dreamer, but I think others who do grow up with two parents they know can understand
what it is like to experience an absent father when people stop shoving the subject out of sight and mind.

Actress
Jennifer Aniston stars in the romantic comedy, "The Switch," a film about
a single childless woman, like herself, who chooses to be artificially inseminated and
becomes pregnant. She said recently that women don't have to "settle" on a man "just
to have that child." Conservative TV host Bill O'Reilly, a married father of two, says Aniston's words
send "a message to 12-year-olds and 13-year-olds that 'Hey you don't need a guy.
You don't need a Dad.'"

Do you think children need a mother and a father
in their lives to thrive? Click on Comments below to tell us what you think.

"When I was 13
or so, the Vietnam War in full flower, reading Graham Greene's The Quiet American let me appreciate fiction in a whole new
way. Years later, Danielle Flood's riveting memoir-cum-mystery-story has let me appreciate Greene and his novel -- and the
intersections of fiction and nonfiction -- in new ways. Such a story! And so beautifully told." -- Kurt Andersen, novelist,
host of the public radio show Studio 360

"Passionate and unflinchingly honest, this is a fascinating memoir that explores the tangled connections
between Graham Greene’s fictional version of wartime Indochina, and the real people there whose actions have haunted the author for most of her life. She is the
child of an affair so much like the one described in the love triangle of Greene’s novel that she is perfectly right
to make her startling claim, “I am a sequel he never wrote.”----Michael Shelden, author of Graham Greene:
The Enemy Within and Indiana State University Professor.

"Every once in a while a memoir will appear that has the power to stop us dead...This book relates the triumph
of the indomitable human spirit in the most trying of life's circumstances..." -- Jo Manning, biographer and novelist

"Extraordinary and spectacular...a story that connect powerfully and poignantly
with most of us." -- David Lawrence, Jr., international child advocate and former publisher of The Miami Herald

"...a work that will outlive us all: compelling, acutely honest and profoundly moving, without being whiny or cruel. That's rare." -- Joe McGinniss,
author, The Selling of the President and others.

Below, the author reads several sections from THE UNQUIET DAUGHTER to a crowd of more than a hundred at the Books
and Books in Coral Gables, Florida. During the Q & A she explains how she found foreign service and Central Intelligence
Agency officers who worked in Saigon with her parents more than 65 years ago, amongst other matters. In the video below, Mitchell
Kaplan, founder of Books and Books and the Miami International Book Fair, book seller and movie producer, introduces former
Miami Herald publisher Dave Lawrence to the audience of some 100 persons. Lawrence introduces Danielle Flood.